The ELLA team would like to give a big congratulations to Livia MacPhedran, a recent ELLA alumni who was awarded the Winifred Gimblett Prize for her excellent Master of Science (MSc) thesis. This award is for post-graduate Psychology research students (Honours, PGDip, or Masters) and “is to reward and recognise excellence in research in the field of Psychology, with particular reference to the behaviour of adults or that of children and adolescents, the latter including the effects of mental hindrances or disabilities upon their scholastic progress.”
Her masters project investigated the biological basis of cooperation by exploring the extent to which genetic variation influences 22-month-old infants’ ability to coordinate their actions with an adult researcher. Her results revealed that variability in genes associated with attention processes influences infants’ attention to social aspects of cooperative action. Let’s give Liv a big round of applause!